Join me today in welcoming author Ron Yates to The Long and Short Stories of Life. Ron is touring this week with his “Billy Battles Trilogy”. In this post, he exchanges his fiction writer’s hat to share nuggets from his 27 years as a journalist for The Chicago Tribune. Please read with a small notebook in hand because you’ll want to take notes. Thanks and enjoy.

Journalistic Method for Authors (Part 2)

How can the methods of reporting and writing practiced by professional journalists possibly benefit those who write fiction? After all, the rules of journalism demand that you shape your writing to your material, not the other way around.

The answer can be found in the fundamentals of the writer’s craft: Observation and Research. In journalism, research is called reporting but learning how to “see” what is going on around you is the same for both the novelist and the journalist.

It’s called observation.

For the journalist, precise observation is one of the keys to accurate reporting. For the writer of fiction seeing the world accurately not only allows you to create vivid descriptions that readers can believe, but it can also spur the imagination.

For the journalist, the most severe obstacles to accurate observation lie in the mental baggage we all carry—the preconception, the stereotype, the prejudice.

It’s the same for the novelist. The preconceived belief, the stereotype, and the prejudgment distort our vision, leading us to see only what we expected to find, instead of what may be in front of us. No human being can exorcise them, but all writers must learn to identify their mental baggage and check it at the door.

Unlike the journalist, however, authors of fiction can allow their biases to be expressed through the characters they create. The journalist must boil down an anecdote to its essentials, even if some participants or some quotes must be left out. It is dishonest to distort a scene or change quotes to make the anecdote funnier or more pertinent.

In fiction, that is not a problem. However, experienced writers will carefully observe and mentally record a scene so they can incorporate it their narrative. They may alter the scene or the quote or the anecdote to fit the story they are telling, but if they have been keen observers the scene they are modifying will have a firm basis in reality and it will ring true with readers.

Most writers and journalists begin their research and reporting with at least some idea of what they will find—or what they think they should find. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. In scientific research, the same sort of presumption is called a hypothesis.

It is accepted as the essential starting point for any research project. The scientific method demands that the scientist, in testing the hypothesis, look for evidence to disprove it. That high standard of detachment is not always met, even in science.

But it is the standard that every writer should apply to his or her work.

Its okay to begin with an idea of your likely conclusion, so long as you keep your eyes and your mind open to evidence that may suggest a different outcome. Careful observation will turn up the evidence; an open mind will accept it.

Scientists have another tool that more reporters and writers would do well to borrow. In science, it’s called reviewing the literature.

What do I mean by that? No reputable researcher launches a study without carefully combing the journals of the discipline to learn everything possible about the research already done; the questions left unanswered, the methods others have found useful.

An hour spent on The Internet, a computer database, or down at the public library often will net you reams of invaluable information. In reviewing the literature, writers, like scientists, often can improve their ideas about what questions to ask and where to look for the answers.

The best novelists write from experience–predominantly their own. They do this, not by relying only on their memories, but by recording events, incidents, encounters, people, etc. in notebooks.

I have dozens of old reporter’s notebooks that are filled with descriptions of people, places, and events I covered during a 27 year career as a reporter and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. (By the way, Tribune lawyers HATED that. They counseled us to get rid of our notebooks so they could never be used as evidence in a libel trial).

I kept my notebooks because when it comes to recreating scenes or experiences, those notebooks are worth their weight in platinum. And the descriptions are not just visual. They also include the other four senses: sound and smell; and in some cases, taste and touch.

Those notebooks are a critical form of observation. Without them, my view of the past would be shadowy and indistinct, but most of all the descriptions I create in my novels would lack that critical precision, and veracity readers need to “see” what you are writing.

[TOMORROW: PART 3]

Ronald E. Yates is an award winning author of historical fiction and action/adventure novels, including the popular and highly-acclaimed Finding Billy Battles trilogy. His extraordinarily accurate books have captivated fans around the world who applaud his ability to blend fact and fiction.

Ron is a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the College of Media. His award-winning book, “The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles,” is the second in his Finding Billy Battles trilogy of novels and was published in June 2016. The first book in the trilogy, “Finding Billy Battles,” was published in 2014. Book #3 of the trilogy (The Lost Years of Billy Battles) was published in June 2018.

As a professional journalist, Ron lived and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia, and both Central and South America where he covered several history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and revolutions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other places. His work resulted in multiple journalism awards, including three Pulitzer nominations and awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Inter-American Press Association, to name a few.

To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE.

Lastly, Ron is a member of the best book club ever – RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB {#RRBC}! If you’re looking for amazing support as an author, or if you simply love books, JOIN US! We’d love to have you!

Yes, Joy. Writing for an academic journal is often using words and phrases the “rest of us” can understand. You are writing to a specific audience well versed in “academy-speak.” I was a professor and dean of a college at the University of Illinois for 13 years. I never got used to the obfuscation and Byzantine language used in that world. Thanks for stopping by!

Hello! You’re right, Ron, careful observation and an open mind are two key elements of writing believable fiction. But what happens if you’re writing fiction on a subject that cannot be observed? Or on a subject that only exists in your mind? How do you ground the story in reality? That may be a topic for another day. Great post! Thanks for hosting, Linda! 😉 xo

Good question, Vashti. I once heard Ray Bradbury speak and he addressed that question this way: Even when writing the most far-out sci-fi the author should provide a thread of reality that readers can hang onto as you take them on an excursion into the unknown. It gives them something to hang onto.

Good point Ron about keeping an open mind while writing and being able to observe how things really are. I’m a fan of research and being accurate with facts within fiction. I’m really enjoying your tour. Thanks for hosting, Linda:)

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